Oud Beersel Framboise | Brouwerij Oud Beersel

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Flavors follow nose in that the palate is initially quickly hit with a sweet fresh raspberry and then flavor immediately goes to a much more refined, sophisticated, tart and "adult" raspberry with a citric lime back palate and character. Pure and not synthetic. There is a real tart, fresh fruit quality that makes this incredibly drinkable and not like the soda pop raspberry drinks of others.

AROMA: Powdered sugar and raspberries, with supplementary minor sour cherries. Sourness is ~3/10 in terms of intensity, and evokes authentic lambicus wild yeasts. Some drinkers might find it veers into medicinal/cough syrup character, but I think it avoids that. Not as tart or acidic and would be ideal, and the sourness could be more developed - e.g. via intricate bacterial notes.

TASTE/TEXTURE: Not real sour; maybe 2-3/10 in terms of intensity. Not real tart or bacterial. Lacks sufficient acidity. The sourness seems to come only from lambicus yeast and not bacteria. There's a definite raspberry taste, with nice notes of powdered sugar complementing. Cherry skin gives it a supple feel on the palate.

Lacks the artificiality and synthetic taste of inferior offerings.

It's well-carbonated, if a bit effervescent. Light-bodied and refreshing, with an apt smooth and wet feel on the palate. Again, it should be more acidic. Lacks the smackiness and twang of the best framboise style beers. More of a powdery soft comforting feel would be ideal.

It's not gestalt, but it doesn't want for balance or cohesion. Well put together, though sour enthusiasts might be let down by its merely mild sourness. It won't pucker the lips of even of the most casual sour drinkers.

OVERALL: Not a gestalt beer, but a nice one. It's a likable framboise, and my biggest criticisms are of its shortcomings and opportunities for improvement - not any flaws or errors. Very drinkable stuff. I'll enjoy finishing the bottle, but don't expect a world-class brew. Nice work from Oud Beersel.

This could easily be aged for 5+ years to good effect. Would pair well with acidic salads.

fortunate enough to have this one on draft. a really great beer all up, enormously better than their base kriek i think. the fruit is less medicinal, and the lambic base comes through more. i see more grain, more sourness, and a better mouthfeel that isnt so weighted down by fruit sugars. the raspberry nose is robust, and the flavor is just as true. a little tart, a lot summery, and all fruit on the finish. clear in color, way more clear than the kriek, with a brilliant ruby red as its base, but not a whole lot of head. i smell what i taste, and im fine with that, although this is nowhere near as dynamic or compelling as the best framboise on the market. i do think its a step up from the elementary kriek in its fruit authenticity and its dryness, which is only medium, but way less sweet than the cherry. i also think its more drinkable for the same reason. again, nowhere near as good as some of the more mature beers they do, oude kriek for example, but awfully good and a darn good presentation of what raspberry can do in a simple base beer.

A beer my wife ordered at the Pizza Plant I tired it and liked it enough to get my own,poured into a small chalice a murky kind of brownish red with a well formed light pinkish colored head.Tart raspberry and oaky sherry notes mainly,quite tingly in the mouth maybe a bit much,decent sweetness upfront and flavors of raspberry puree a sherry vinegar-like sour note comes thru late along with a woody presence.At first its tasty but it seems to become a little less palatable after a bit the vinegar like sourness is annoying after a bit.If you dont drink much of this beer its great,all in all Iam glad I tried it.

375ml corked and caged bottle. Best before 26.01.2009. Picked this up in Dayton, OH on my way back from Kentucky. Pours into my tulip glass a wonderful deep red with purple hues as well, after a nice pop from the cork. Half inch of light bubbly pinkish head atop the brew. Aromas start in with vibrant ripe raspberry tones alongside a big sour acidic twang. Touch of lemon zest with musty, funky yeast tones. Really draws you in with each inhalation.

First sip brings a wave of somewhat sweet raspberry flavors that meld into a nice sourness. Acidity is there but it's not overpowering. Lemon zested grains hit the roof of the mouth midway through each sip, along with mellow musty notes. Finishes with a nice sweet/sour infusion and a light lingering raspberry. This was a nice framboise, albiet a bit on the sweeter side.

Mouthfeel is smooth with plenty of bubbly carbonation that gives a creamy aspect to each sip. This one is quite drinkable as it lacks the strong acidity that some lambics tend to have. Not something I'd choose on a regular basis, but always a nice treat. I'll be looking forward to sampling the Kriek and Gueuze sometime soon!

A - Pours a clear pinkish brown with half a finger of white head. Very small spots of lacing. Also, even a gentle pour results in some suspended sediment.

S - Initial smell has no fruit, just some tartness and a bit of funk. However, subsequent whiffs are loaded with raspberry aroma, both tart and sweet. The funk and raspberry never seem to blend together, but appear as distinct aromas.

T - Nice amount of tartness makes the tongue tingle initially, followed by a rush of raspberry, some earthy funk. Finishes tart, oaky and dry.

M - Light and crisp, with nice carbonation.

O - A good framboise. Definitely in the middle of the sweet/tart spectrum compared to others of the style. While it didn't blow me away, I could see revisiting this one in the future.

Best by date of 2/13/11. I have no idea how old the beer is, but it tasted very young.

The beer pours an amber color with a few white bubbles. Not much of a head. The aroma is a mixture of raspberries and oak, with the fruit standing out. The flavor is very heavy on the raspberries with some light oak. There is very little tartness. Medium mouthfeel and low carbonation. In retrospect I should have let this beer age for quite a bit longer, but with no bottling date, I thought it was older than it was. Still, not a bad beer.

Pours a nice dark ruby red with a small very lightly pink head. Nose is sweet, fresh and fruity with a small tart funky note.

The fruitiness is so well done in this, it's fresh and sweet without being cloying, the raspberry is so brite and sharp. The finish is well balanced and a bit tart. This isn't "sour" so much as it's tart (think sweet tarts here), but not puckeringly so. I could drink this all night and at just 5% the only pain would be in my wallet, although its quite reasonably priced compared to other quality fruit lambics.

Easily one of the best Framboise I've had to date, and it's just as good in bottle as on draft.

Big rich raspberry nose with a touch of tartness, light lemon and a slight funk. It pours brilliant reddish brown with a thin whisp of a head. The palate is exquisite with just the right amount of lemony tartness with just a hint of sweetness in the back. The story here is deep, dry, raspberry flavors as raspberry as it is possible to get with traces of malt and wheat in the background. Light body with medium high carbonation. Nothing cloying or over sweet. Grab a bottle of this, a baguette, some smelly cheese and sit in the park all day and watch the roller skaters.

Very pretty mostly pinkish with a slight purple edge to it, nice pink head, very frothy and big at over 1.5". Aroma was definitely sweet fruit raspberry forward.

While Oud Beersel makes great lambics and gueuze, I feel the framboise suffers the same problem that Lindemans framboise does. It forgoes a nice sour mouthfeel, for a balance of tart/sour and sweet. Too much sweetness here for my tastes. Its still good, but not as good as their other efforts.

Highly carbonated mouthfeel is nice, but I just can't get over the sweetness. Can't pull any oak out of this one.

(Served in a flute) best before 15.04.2014
A- The fizzy cranberry colored foam head sits on a deep red dense body with strands of racing microbubbles popping to the surface. The base of the glass looks like crystal clear grape jelly. S- The notes of dry tart fresh raspberries ends with a slightly green note. There is a jelly donuts filling quality with a full raspberry aroma and some dry dark fruit hints underneath.
T- The dry tart flavor leads to a softer but bright raspberry finish. There is a softer bretty grapefruit flavor underneath that lingers a moment in the finish.
M- This beer has a light mouthfeel with a fine scrubbing bubble fizz in the finish.
D- The full fruit is nice and not sweet with some soft lambic wild characters underneath. Easy to drink.

Appearance: a good color, dark red with little bits of black around the edges. No lacing, head disappeared quickly.

Smell: Currant, currant, and currant with some basil.

Taste: Some strawberry and currants, other small fruits. Very aqueous. Flavor starts off well, but soon turns into water. A bit disappointing really.

Mouthfeel: Too much carbonation. All the gas just made the beer feel, rough. That's the only way to describe it.

Drinkability: I didn't enjoy drinking the beer. The only reason I finished the beer is that I didn't want to throw it away. Part of my displeasure was from the carbonation and the fact that there was nothing really going for it.

A disappointing beer, not a bad one necessarily, but just, disappointing.

This one is a thick red color, too thick to see through, with a vaguely orange tint. The head, just off-white with a slightly pinkish edge to it, is a little too spritzy but does stay for a long time; unfortunately, that's only as a foam that pretty much gives up on making an effort at lacing.
The nose is more lambic with less fruit to it, though raspberry tartness is throughout with the sourness. It needs the elements to come together a bit more and mingle properly; as such, it's almost enough of everything, but each note separates then comes back confusedly in an inconsistent manner. More raspberry overall would be good, and there's not quite enough sweetness to balance the tart. It's not bad by any stretch, just not up there with the really good ones.
The feel was too thin and, while the style is light, didn't have much keeping it interesting. Crispness is consistent enough but low, just enough to keep it from unpleasant.

375ml caged and corked bottle. Thanks once again to Phyl21ca for this Belgian offering not (yet, probably) available in my jurisdiction. Kind of unfortunate how they feel the need to proclaim "Real Fruit", in three languages, front and center on the label.

This beer pours a rather dark red brick amber hue, with fine pepper-flake sediment swirling lazily about, and one finger of weakly foamy, and mostly bubbly dirty pink head, which fizzes away in barely more than an instant, leaving little in the way of lace near the glass.

It smells of semi-sweet raspberry puree, a bit of acidic wild cherry, yeasty pale malt, and a very soft, green vegetal hoppiness. The taste is more fresh, and rather meaty crushed raspberries, a more muted sour, musty cherry fruitiness, some moderately gritty and grainy wheat malt, a tamed earthy, funky yeastiness, and low-key weedy, floral hops.

The carbonation is pretty well sublimated, and hard to really point out, the body on the pleasantly light side of medium weight, and smooth enough after the general tartness levels off. It finishes just off-dry, the combination of the lingering grainy malt and eviscerated fruit still holding out a ray of hope for sweetness.

While tasty, and mostly easy to drink, with a heady amount of veritable raspberry goodness, the overall complexity seems just a tad lacking. This is just in relation to other versions of the style, and meant solely as constructive criticism - always room to improve, no?

T: Big berrylicious blast, more sweet than tart. Funk and tartness pair off together but don't make much of an overall impact on the palate. Delightful berry finish starts off crisp but does not finish as dry.

M: Carbonation makes good play off of the fruit

D: A beautiful summer drink, but works just as well on a cool fall day.